Background
Gordon, Mary Catherine was born on December 8, 1949 in Long Island, New York, United States. Daughter of David and Anna (Gagliano) Gordon.
(Mary Gordon, bestselling author of Spending and The Shado...)
Mary Gordon, bestselling author of Spending and The Shadow Man, investigates the role that place plays in the formation of identity -- the connections between how we experience place and how we become ourselves. From her grandmother's house, which stood at the center of her childhood life, to a rented house on Cape Cod, where she began to mature as a writer, Mary Gordon navigates the reader through these spaces and worlds with subtlety and style. Wise, humorous, and intelligent, Seeing Through Places illuminates the relationship between the physical, emotional, and intellectual architectures of our lives, showing us the far-reaching power that places ultimately have in influencing a life.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684862557/?tag=2022091-20
(In Immaculate Man, a virgin priest finds love; a journali...)
In Immaculate Man, a virgin priest finds love; a journalist alters his lover's life in Living at Home; and in The Rest of Life, a teenager is inspired by the Romantic poets to make a suicide pact. 50,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670838284/?tag=2022091-20
(Anna Gagliano Gordon, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, ...)
Anna Gagliano Gordon, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, was the personification of the culture of the mid-century American Catholic working class. A hard-working single mother – Mary Gordon's father died when she was still a girl – she managed to hold down a job, dress smartly, raise her daughter on her own, and worship the beauty in life with a surprising joie de vivre. Bringing her exceptional talent for detail, character, and scene to bear on the life of her mother, Gordon gives us a deeply felt and powerfully moving book about their relationship. Toward the end of Anna's life, we watch the author care for her mother in old age, beginning to reclaim from memory the vivid woman who helped her sail forth into her own life.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307277615/?tag=2022091-20
(In this triumphant return to nonfiction after two critica...)
In this triumphant return to nonfiction after two critically acclaimed works of fiction, Mary Gordon gives us a rich, bittersweet memoir about her mother, their relationship and her role as daughter. Anna Gagliano Gordon, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, lived a life colored by large forces: immigration, world war, the Great Depression, and physical affliction--she contracted Polio at the age of 3 and experienced the ravages of both alcoholism and dementia. A hard-working single mother--Gordon’s father died when she was still a girl--Anna was the personification of the culture of the mid-century American Catholic working class. Yet, even in the face of these setbacks, she managed hold down a job, to dress smartly and raise her daughter on her own, and though she was never a fan of the arts which so attracted Mary, she worshiped the beauty in life in her own way, with a surprising joie de vivre and a beautiful singing voice. Gordon writes about Anna in all of her roles: sister, breadwinner, woman of faith and single mother. We discover Anna’s wry and often biting humor, her appreciation of life’s simple pleasures, her courage in breaking out of the narrow confines of her birth. Toward the end of Anna’s life, we watch the author take on all the burdens and blessings of caring for her mother in old age, beginning even then to reclaim from memory the vivid woman who helped her sail forth into her own life. Bringing her exceptional talent for detail, character, and scene to bear on the life of her mother, Gordon gives us a deeply felt and powerfully moving book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375424563/?tag=2022091-20
(The stories of Mary Gordon return us to the pleasure of t...)
The stories of Mary Gordon return us to the pleasure of this writer's craft and to her monumental talent as an observer of character and of the ever-fading American Dream. These pieces encompass the pre- and postwar Irish American family life she circles in the early Temporary Shelter series, as well as a wealth of new fiction that brings her contemporary characters into middle age; it is their turn to face bodily decline, mortality, and the more complex anxieties of modern life. With their powerful insights into how we make do, both socially and privately, these stories are a treasure of American fiction.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400078083/?tag=2022091-20
(In this collection of short stories, the author portrays ...)
In this collection of short stories, the author portrays the magnified misunderstandings of childhood - the frustrations of truths witheld, the jealous need for belonging and yet for privacy. She observes the guilt and confusion death brings to the living and explores motherhood and marriage. Mary Gordon is also the author of "Men and Angels".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0747500061/?tag=2022091-20
(? A master of the story form? (The New York Times) offers...)
? A master of the story form? (The New York Times) offers a fresh, revealing portrait of the legendary saint Celebrated novelist Mary Gordon brings Joan of Arc alive as a complex figure full of contradictions and desires, as well as spiritual devotion. A humble peasant girl, Joan transformed herself into the legendary Maid of Orléans, knight, martyr, and saint. Following the voice of God, she led an army to victory and crowned the king of France, only to be captured and burned at the stake as a heretic?all by the age of nineteen. Gordon does more than tell this gripping story?she explores Joan?s mystery and the many facets of her inspiring life.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143113976/?tag=2022091-20
(? A master of the story form? (The New York Times) offers...)
? A master of the story form? (The New York Times) offers a fresh, revealing portrait of the legendary saint Celebrated novelist Mary Gordon brings Joan of Arc alive as a complex figure full of contradictions and desires, as well as spiritual devotion. A humble peasant girl, Joan transformed herself into the legendary Maid of Orleans, knight, martyr, and saint. Following the voice of God, she led...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FKYHPOK/?tag=2022091-20
(When Isabel Moore's father dies, she finds herself, at th...)
When Isabel Moore's father dies, she finds herself, at the age of thirty, suddenly freed from eleven years of uninterrupted care for a helpless man. With all the patterns of her life suddenly rendered meaningless, she turns to childhood friends for support, gets a job, and becomes involved with two very different men. But just as her future begins to emerge, her past throws up a daunting challenge. A moving story of self-reinvention, Final Payments is a timeless exploration of the nature of friendship, desire, guilt, and love.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307276783/?tag=2022091-20
(A collection of essays about the oversung and the unsung ...)
A collection of essays about the oversung and the unsung in literature, including essays about Edith Wharton, Flannery O'Connor, abortion, Catholicism and class. Other work by the author includes Final Payments, The Company of Women and Men and Angels.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140116931/?tag=2022091-20
("A superb, stunningly written novel." The Philadelphia In...)
"A superb, stunningly written novel." The Philadelphia Inquirer Raised by five intensely religious women and a charismatic, controversial priest, sheltered from the secular world, Felicitas Maria Taylor is intelligent, charming, and desperate for a taste of ordinary happiness. More freedom than she has ever imagined awaits her at Columbia University in the 1960s. There, Felicitas falls in love with the worst man for her -- with shattering results. Now she must turn again to the company of the women who love her as she struggles to embrace the future without betraying the past.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345483014/?tag=2022091-20
Gordon, Mary Catherine was born on December 8, 1949 in Long Island, New York, United States. Daughter of David and Anna (Gagliano) Gordon.
Bachelor, Barnard College, New York, 1971. Master of Arts, Syracuse University, New York, 1973. Doctor (honorary), Belmont Abbey College, 1984.
Doctor (honorary), Assumption College, 1988. Doctor (honorary), State University of New York New Paltz, 1989. Doctor (honorary), St. Xavier University, 1994.
Doctor (honorary), Siena College, 1997. Doctor (honorary), Skidmore College, 1997.
Teacher English, Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, New York, 1974-1978; teacher English, Amherst (Massachusetts) College, 1979-1980; teacher English, Barnard College, since 1988.
(? A master of the story form? (The New York Times) offers...)
(? A master of the story form? (The New York Times) offers...)
(Mary Gordon, bestselling author of Spending and The Shado...)
(In this triumphant return to nonfiction after two critica...)
(In Immaculate Man, a virgin priest finds love; a journali...)
(In this collection of short stories, the author portrays ...)
(The stories of Mary Gordon return us to the pleasure of t...)
(A National Bestseller  In these beautifully rendered n...)
(A collection of essays about the oversung and the unsung ...)
(A collection of essays about the oversung and the unsung ...)
(When Isabel Moore's father dies, she finds herself, at th...)
(Anna Gagliano Gordon, who died in 2002 at the age of 94, ...)
("A superb, stunningly written novel." The Philadelphia In...)
Married James Brain, 1974 (divorced). Married Arthur Cash, 1979. Children: Anna Gordon, David Dess Gordon.